Fellow Pakistani,

The other side of the border,

Some Pakistani town.

Dear Brother,

You don’t know me but you have a fair idea who I am. I am the one whom you blame for everything bad happening in your country - be it floods , terrorist attacks and even your cricket team fixing matches.  Today I have something to speak to you about.

I have remained quiet for a long time in spite of you bombing our cities. You are instigating the illiterate  Kashmiris to come to your fold. You are helping the Maoists to fight against us, but we can handle them alright.  I did not say a word while you caught our innocent fishermen and put them in your stinking jails.  I even ignored the fact that you keep buying missiles from China and keep testing their long ranges. My country is moving slowly because of all the troubles you cause - we are fighting poverty and crime in  our cities. We are trying to provide roads to our villages but your acts of cowardice are taking the focus away from the development activities.

But enough is enough. We are a strong and peace loving nation - and we also act like one.

We know that you send terrorists dressed up as fishermen. But our coast guard and navy are extremely efficient and catch all of them. Our defense research is doing extremely well and we have developed (and are developing)  missiles which can black out your entire country. You should not forget the way we helped the poor Bengalis to form a force against your tyrant country and gain independence. The Bangladeshis are so thankful to us that every year, millions of them come to India to say thanks and clean our houses and do our laundry.  We also know that you are still forcibly controlling Balochistan - where you have not cared to provide basic amenities like jobs and education.  Because of your ways, your country is not progressing - you are so poor that your cities are full of slums and you villages have dirt laden roads where even your bullock carts get stuck in the monsoons.

When a Pakistani comes to India we shower him/her with love. We take him to the places which make him remember and forget his home at the same time. We treat him well, in spite of fifty percent of Pakistanis in India being on a mission to spread terror. We treat you like brothers when you are here. But what  do you do when an Indian goes to Pakistan ? You eye him with suspicion. On the pretentious pretext of showing your culture and culinary skills, you shadow him all over your country to keep an eye on him. This is not how a good neighbor behaves - you should learn more from us.

And finally coming to your media and websites. They have created a whole money making industry by blaming us and shouting us for all things that happen in Pakistan. They can go on and on, but we will not speak to you until you stop cross border terrorism, so consider this as my first and last letter to you.

Thanking You,

Your Brother

Noisy Indian.

Post Publishing Addendum :  A few of my Indian readers missed the point about Doublespeak in this post… please reread to find the double standards both Indians and Pakistanis use when they talk about the people across the border

The Prime Minister ensured that even if he loses his job to youngsters called Rahul or Priyanka, he would be ideally suited for the post of the All India Radio News Reader. The speech should ideally have started like this -

“This is Red Fort and you are listening to the news read by Man … Mohan… Singh…”

However, he did not chose a good news script writer - or an ignorant one (perhaps it was written by Kapil Sibal), because the first thing he started with was the weather report -

“A few days back, many precious lives were lost in Laddakh due to a cloud burst…….”

Then he told us how his Government has been instrumental in bringing about the this weather change -

“When I addressed you last year on Independence Day, our country was facing a number of difficulties. There was a drought like situation in many parts of the country. I am happy to say that we have acquitted ourselves well in these difficult circumstances.”

Of course it is the combination of the hot airs blown by Kapil Sibal and the cold shoulders given by Sonia Gandhi which has brought about this major climatic change. Effective cucumber-ish cooling by Man Mohan Singh added to formation of tea cup storms created by Tweets from Shashi Thuroor. Though Shashi is no longer in the cabinet, but it his contribution too - which has brought India from droughts to  flash floods due to cloud bursts.

Moving on to the speech - after the weather update came the Thank You note -

“Our country is viewed with respect all over the world. Our views command attention in international fora. All of you have contributed to India’s success. The hard work of our workers, our artisans, our farmers has brought our country to where it stands today.”

What ? No thank you notes to BPO guys or software engineers ? We guys work day and night to ensure that we snatch jobs world over sitting right here in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai  and even in Bareilly and Hampi.  We build the reputation of the #1  “Job-snatcher nation of the world”, ” the chop shop” and all the good things about India in the world. Yet there is no mention of our efforts. We earn the actual cash - and you praise of artisans like  SRK and Amir, who have created the concept of loving mother earth by running and dancing around trees world famous ?  You even mention your useless party workers but not us.  I throw a strong excpetion - I hope you catch it.

The Prime Minster, however had to drop a few lines from this paragraph of this speech -

“We are building a new India in which every citizen would have a stake, an India which would be prosperous and in which all citizens would be able to live a life of honour and dignity in an environment of peace and goodwill. An India in which all problems could be solved through democratic means.”

He also wanted to add the following lines - but as soon as Sonia Gandhi read them, she gave MMS the look a  mathematics teacher gives to a student who thinks that algebra is an African animal.  The lines originally were -

“We are building a new India in which every citizen would have a stake, an India which would be prosperous and in which all citizens would be able to live a life of honour and dignity in an environment of peace and goodwill. An India in which all problems could be solved through democratic means.An India where no one is tormented by his invisible or visible bosses. An Indian where nobody has subordinates with egos of the size of  Tata’s Singur Plans.  An India where coalition partners at the Center do not fight state elections against each other. An India where Butter Chicken is the national bird.”
And now for the worst parts of PM’s speech

“I know that in the last few months high inflation has caused you difficulties. It is the poor who are the worst affected by rising prices, especially when the prices of commodities of every day use like foodgrains, pulses, vegetables increase. It is for this reason that we have endeavored to minimize the burden of increased prices on the poor. Today, I do not want to go into the detailed reasons for high inflation.”

what he really wanted to say was “..because I don’t frigging myself know. Neither do I have any solutions, but you should be happy that at least I know about it. We still have a few years in office and let us relax now. We will bring down the prices when we want the votes. Right now, shut up and listen to me - just like I shut up and listen to Sonia ji.”

And finally, in typical media -istyle lets take some phrases out of context from the speech, and cynically comment on them.

• It is obvious that any person or institution cannot spend more than his income over a long period of time, even if it is the Government.
  • So the ministers and other ruling party members need to find out other ways to finance their one thousand nine hundred and  welve bedroom mansions
• We have been giving special attention to education and health in the last six years.
  • And hence we have de-recognized the degrees of tens of thousands of youngsters
• I consider it a primary responsibility of all our citizens to maintain cleanliness and hygiene around them.
  • So please don’t say nasty things about Sonia-ji,  Rahul Beta-ji and Priyanka Bitiya. Next year I will ask you stop saying bad things to me.
• It is imperative that Centre and States work together to meet the challenge of naxalism.
  • So please elect Congress governments in Naxal-affected states.
• We have a special responsibility towards the States of the North East.
  • Because I got elected from there in Rajya Sabha.
• The use of harsh and unpleasant words in our political discourse has increased in recent days. This is against our traditions of generosity, humility and tolerance.
  • So cleanliness and hygiene is not the sole responsibility of lota carrying citizens - there is some onus on the politicians too.
• Our future is bright. The day when our dreams will come true is not far off.
  • Which happens to be one month after the next elections - when I am reinstated as the Prime Minister (hopefully Rahul beta-ji is still not ready by then)

The lamest Prime Minister speech - which looked like a new bulletin at times , preacher’s preach to foolish citizens at times ended with the customary order to little children to say Jai Hind. The children obliged.
The Prime  Minister’s speech reminded us that he is the ruler of this country , and not the prime servant. He told us that his responsibility was to take care of his cabinet, the whims and fancies of his coalition partners and orders from  Sonia Gandhi. Cleanliness and Hygiene was a responsibility of the public at large,  secularism was a responsibility of the opposition, growth was a responsibility of farmers and workers. The complete text of the speech can found here in English and here in Hindi - do read.

he’ll join a  good job
and will wear a crisp shirt
would crib about his boss
and probably work like a mule

at university he would mug
and with girls he’ll flirt
crack puns with lads of age
and over girls he’ll drool

at home he’ll be a brat
and be greedy for dessert
his Mom will set them a lot
he’ll surely  break every rule

there’ll  great days in his life
but one thing I’ll assert
that none could be as great as
my son’s first day at school …

This is an article I wrote for the Monthly News Letter of our business group at Cadence.
Some puns/cracks might be lost on non-Cadence folks

The editors of the news letter are called Detonators - as the newsletter is called Ignite. I was the detonator of the month, so pretty much took the liberty to write anything I wanted … Here goes. ..

We all know M.M.C Teria is the most popular and loved employee of Cadence India. We meet her every day, yet all of us know so little about her.

Which is why this time around, the detonators decided to interview her. Here are some excerpts from the great conversation we had with M.M.C Teria - known as the Mirch Masala Café Teria, or just “Cafeteria”

Detonator (D): Teria, thanks for talking to us.  Tell us something about your family

Teria: You know them all very well. My husband, Kit Chen, works 24×7, for CDSI. His work is mission critical for Implementation Group employees because it is his team who ensures that the meals they get is rightly balanced in terms of Dutrition. My daughter - Kofi Mc Chines works all over the CDSI campus, and has constantly received appreciation from all Managers for keeping their teams awake.  My elder son, Sam Wichkiosky, works with me all day and basically earns bread for the family. My youngest son, Count Erlyve has just joined the Cadence community, is already being liked by everybody. Our family owes its salt to CDSI, and vice versa.

D: That is some family dedication. I must appreciate it. But I have a question - You just mentioned that your husband is responsible for Dutrition. I have never heard that word, what does that mean?

Teria: I can understand, especially you - who has the ability to make Microsoft Word crash by just running the spelling checker on your documents.  Dutrition is defined as amount of nutrients in your food which impact your ability to perform your duty. For example, more tasty food would be eaten more. More food is eaten, more lethargy sets in. More the lethargy - less the productivity. Hence it is imperative to ensure that the food is never delicious, but always edible. It is a tough task.

D: You have been around for a long time; tell us more about your career progress here.

Teria: Well, I joined Cadence when I was very young, and could serve only 15 tables at a time. I and my husband both had a leisurely life then. However, with time new buildings and new engineers were made, and the tables turned. I was given the role of Mirch Masala and now had to do much more than just work as a Cafeteria. My job responsibilities now additionally included comms meetings, parties, celebrations and table tennis. With time, table tennis and large scale parties have gone. But my work is as hectic.

But I really enjoy this work.

D: So what is the best part about your work?

Teria: The best thing about working as Mirch Masala is the technical contribution to issues of national and scientific importance. For example my husband’s research on Dutrition is being used by many companies world over. Also the Indian Army had borrowed the Rotis made by our family for creating edible bullet proof vests for the war zone. My daughter Kofi’s work has been cited as the standard for studying true randomness by many universities the world over. You see, you can never predict how strong or light or milky the next cup of coffee would be.

The other enjoyable thing is the daily gossip I get to hear. Even though it is the most non-enclosed area in CDSI, the implementation group employees think of the place as the talking point - the best being something called lunch one on ones.  These are one on one meeting of an employee and his or her busy manager. I say busy, because the poor guy has not other time left in his calendar than the lunch time.

However, the employee attitude in these one on ones is deplorable. The first issue they come up with in these meetings is the quality of the food. Why beat around the bush? Ask for your promotion or salary hike straight away, I see no value in dragging my family into this.

D: So this irks you the most in Cadence?

Teria: No, that one is not a core issue. The core issue is the FM channel they play all day all night. The worst of DJs and RJs and “Ouell Frands” kind of announcers get on my nerves. And nobody even listens to them. The other problem is a certain section of Implementation group employees, who find something very funny with the lunch. I hear loud laughter interspersed with two minute long giggles. These are annoying as well as personal attacks on the contribution of my family to this organization. Also I want to tell all Implementation Group employees and their friends in other groups - the cafeteria food is not bad - it is designed that way to keep your productivity up. You should thank me and my family for all the promotions you get due to good work.

D: You are getting all built up, lets relax and ask you some quick fire questions -

Teria: Okay shoot, but do it quickly (the lunch time is about to start)

Your three favorite movies: Mirch Masala, Roti and very recently Garam Masala

Your three Favorite books: “The Chicken Soup Series”, “Who moved my Cheese” and “Radio Crackling, Radio Gone”

And finally, your favorite sport: Table Tennis, what else?

There were two important cases which  were coming in today. The Sarpanch started with the triparty case of Ramshankar, Dhiru and Pakhlu.

“We have all collected here for some important things to do. And we have to take quick decisions but first things first. Next time onwards we would not assemble below this banyan tree. We are six panchs in the panchayat and it has been almost three years since we were elected. All of us used to be fit and lean - but we have been eating so much in the past three years that our bellies have grown up -and so has our appetite. It is very tough for all of us to sit under one tree. You see you can not pack too many panchs in such a small place.”

“Okay we will take up the case of Dhiru’s cow Shanti first. We all know, that she is of the finest quality Kankrej breed and gives upto 3000 litres of milk in a year. She eats less food and is one of the best cows in the whole village. The time has come that she is given a partner to breed. Dhiru , as we all know is not like us panchs and is poor. He can not afford to buy a bull to have his cow breed. Hence we need someone from the village to hand over his bull to Dhiru for Shanti’ breeding. The arrangement as usual would be a two child arrangement. The first calf would be Dhiru’s and the second one would belong to the donor of the bull.”

“Now we as panchs have to take the decision. We have Ramshankar and Pakhlu who have volunteered to extend their bulls for this holy purpose. We will first let Ramshankar present his proposal”

“Thank you Sarpanch ji”, started Ramshankar. “My bull Dharma is of Amritmahal breed. He can take all the panchs and their spouses on a single cart to Rohtak in 2 hours. His horns are more powerful than the ones found in the trucks of Rajasthan. His hump is bigger than the ones put by government officers working in the road department of Haryana. When he snorts he can put Himesh Reshammiya and Mika to shame. He is the ideal candidate for Shanti.”

“Your turn Pakhlu.”

“Sarpanch ji my bull Veeru  is a Khillar and is stronger than the bond between Sania Mirza and Shoaib Malik.  If he joins BJP , he can even bring down the majority UPA government by just snorting once in the Parliament. His horns are sharper than Mallika Sherwat’s curves . Everybody knows that using planes to bring down the World Trade Center was plan B for Al Qaida. They first wanted to use Veeru for that. I being a good man turned down the offer.  My Veeru’s offspring, if it is a male, would protect the whole village from the Tatas who want to make a Nano factory here. If female, India would be saved - because all politicians would want to milk her, instead of the country.”

The panchs broke into a private conversation. 10 minutes went by , all the villagers waited for the decision in anticipation. This was going to be historic decision - important for the whole village. Finally the sarpanch spoke.

“The decision is made in favor of Pakhlu - because he has made an offer of ten thousand rupees per panch, whereas Ramshankar has offered only eight.”

“The next case is of Sundari and Parveen. Sundari a brahman’s daughter has married Parveen who is the son of a Gujjar. This against the honor of the village and the decision here is simple - both of them would be hanged from this tree for three days. Panchayat dismissed”. The villagers got up and walked out as the second decision was neither surprising nor unexpected.  Three days later Sundari and Parveen were hanged from the tree. One year later Shanti gave birth to a baby bull and the entire village immersed into celebrations.

……

I have a kid. I also have a sister who loves me a lot. I have brothers, who would travel twenty five hundred kilometers if they come to know I want their help. I have nephews and nieces who look up  to me as their idol - even though I am not much of it.

And I can not kill any one of them.

But some people can-

The sub inspector from Meerut is ready to throw his daughter from the roof top of his house because she married her class mate.
The educated mother in Jharkhand  forced her daughter to commit suicide, because she was pregnant with a child from a lower cast boy friend.

All in the name of family honor.

And if that is not enough, the khaap panchayats are sitting on top of families for protecting the honor of a village.

How can killing someone you love protect your honor ? How ?

एक एक याद को
कल किया इकठ्ठा मैंने

एक छोटी से मीठी सी याद
जब संग बैठे दिन धूप रात बारिश
करते इधर उधर की गप्प

तो एक थी
अपनी बेबात की हंसी

एक याद पे तो लिखे थे
तुमसे हुई झड़प के किस्से

एक याद आंसू बहा रही थी
तुम से जुदाई के दिन पर

एक याद ने फिर दिखाया
तुम्हारा कन्धा
जिस पे रोया था मैं रात भर

एक याद पर पड़ गयी थी
तुम्हारे माथे की वोह शिकन
जो सुलझाई थी कभी मैंने

सब यादों को रख चला हूँ मैं
अपने अलमारी में

फिर भी
लगतीं हैं कुछ कम

चलो एक बार फिर
मिलें हम
और बनाएं कुछ नयी नवेली यादें
मेरी अलमारी अभी भी
कुछ खाली खाली सी है

The above being the official reason - the real reason was that the BSP supremo’s  party workers who worked at her birthday party complained about the high price of food stuff and the complete balance of the incoming and outgoing funds went berserk this year.  The amount of funds collected in Mayawati’s legendary purse was way too low this year - for no fault of her karyakartas.

Hence, Mayawati decided to form this team to find who was stocking up all the food. The  results were leaked to this website by a very highly placed source in the UP government.  Naming her would be a monumental mistake - so we won’t.

Sugar - Amar Singh

There have been reports that Amar Singh has been hoarding up large quantities of sugar at his Dubai mansion.  He is using that to write his extremely sugarcoated blogs against the family of one Mr Mulayam Singh, Yadav.  (The comma was not a type - but for special effects. The Yadav tag is the only thing the man has got left to show in the UP legislative council elections).  Amar Singh’s act of hoarding and stocking up the sugar would not have been found out - but for his extreme enthusiasm at blogging.  ( As a side note, if you were wondering why noisyindia.com was not coming up with anything funny all this time - it was because of a rival humor blog - http://blog.thakuramarsingh.com/ which has been dishing out levels of humor , which NoisyIndia can never , ever achieve.)

So as we were saying, Amar Singh has done an over use of sugar by addressing people as “netaji”, “betaji”, “bhaisahab” , “bhahi Ram Gopal” etc.   As we all know, a person who is out of work and has been to the hospital recently can neither afford to buy nor afford to have so much sugar. Moreover, he has written 20 blog posts in a single week - all so sugary that the  optical fibers of the internet have become rather gooey. If you have been sticking to the internet for longer all last month -  Amar Singh’s sweet little blog was behind it.

Cucumber - Dr Manmohan Singh

The report also says that the shortage of cucumbers is due to hoarding by none other than Dr Manmohan Singh. Truck loads of cucumbers were smuggled into the numerous houses on the race course road, taking advantage of the fog in New Delhi. The reason ? Isn’t is obvious ? The Prime Minster eats only cucumbers  - morning, noon, evening and night these days. This special diet is not for losing weight, MMS does not throw his weight around much anyway these days - he has outsourced that too HYN Rahul Gandhi. HYN is not Happy New Year - you long-stretched-hangover-from-the-new-year-ash-guys , it is Haamare Yuva Neta. As I was saying, the diet is not to lose weight - but to stay cool.  Let’s analyse some major things happened with MMS last week -

• the junior minsters complaint of no work , just like kids at school complain about their Maths teacher.
• the Pakistani prime minister called at least ten times with names of of ten different Pakistani cricketers saying, “Yaar usko to le lo IPL mein”.  In fact Gilani went a step ahead and said that by doing this India was forcing an unemployment crisis in Pakistan, and hence creating more employment for the terrorism industry.
• MMS has to log into twitter at the chime of every hour - to ensure Shashi Thuroor has not updated his status.
• His brother’s son’s friend’s sister’s daughter , his wife’s brother’s son’s wife’s nephew and worst - Rahul Gandhi’s friend’s son and Sonia Gandhi’s sister’s friend’s daughter’s son’s beer partner called up at least a million times. They were all mad at him for his government making their deemed university a doomed one.

To save precious database space, I will restrain myself from listing everything down. But the reader will a get whiff of hot air blowing in MMS’s life , in spite of the infamous dilli ki sardi. And the knowledgeable reader also knows that the response from MMS to every such thing is a hidden behind the beard quarter of a smile. So how does he manage that ? Its the cucumbers !

We have more stock up reports coming up the next edition of this blog - so keep following…

“…. and these are nothing  but human values which got the cat down from the third floor.

Moving on, we now take you to an important news from Maharashtra.

We are getting this breaking news live and exclusive from the Vidyavihar railway station, where there is a problem on the platform. Our correspondent Aditi Anand Bhosle is at the railway station  covering this live. Aditi, what is the latest ?

Aditi: Indrani, there has been a lot of activity at this station. In fact a lot of the commuters have got so interested in the proceedings, that they got down from the train….

Indrani: Aditi , we have to interrupt you here, we are getting another important news from Kurla railway station. Our correspondent MaheshVidyarthi is at Kurla. Mahesh, what information do you have for us ?

Mahesh: Indrani,  there is an absolute chaos at the Kurla station. All trains coming to this station from the north are absolutely empty. It is five in the evening and the American Tourister advertisement has been shot at this very station at this very time. So you can understand …

Aditi: .. Mahesh, Indrani ….

Indrani: Aditi, you will have to wait. As it is you are a new reporter and Mahesh has already handled reports like ghost of the killer cat and the reincarnation of the Desktop Baba as the Cellphone Baba. Moreover Mahesh gets more salary than you, so we need to get more work out of him. Mahesh , please continue.

Mahesh: Thank you Indrani. As I was saying that this station is known for the crowd , not of the variety that we used to speak of at the Delhi University while discussing South Extension, but of the type that we speak about statues in the memorials of Mayawati’s Uttar Pradesh. At five pm these trains are typically as loaded as french fries with cheese. But today they are as empty as the lunch box of an overweight man whose wife is a doctor. This is a surprise and there is a rumor of something happening at the Vidyavihar station. Indrani.

Indrani: Mahesh, we are getting similar reports from the Vikhroli station. We have Akrosh at Vikhroli, Akrosh, what is the latest at Vikhroli ?

Aditi: But Indrani ….

Indrani: Aditi, this is the last time I am going to tolerate this. Only few people like Barkha and Rajdeep are allowed to interrupt me. I have been covering news from the days when you started covering up your mistakes at home. One more time, and you would be demoted and sent to cover updates on NoisyIndia.com. Akrosh, please go on.

Akrosh: It is a similar story at Vikhroli Indrani. All north bound trains are empty like the movie halls which ran Drona. There is something which is causing a problem at earlier stations. Whatever the reason is we know that the Mumbaikar would rise above everything else and show the world what he or she is made of. A Mumbaikar would send a message to all those who want to disrupt the harmony that he puts his duty, his job of running this city on the topmost priority and would not be broken. A Mumbaikar …

Indrani: Akrosh, first we do not even know what has happened. Second, please do not waste these lines right now.  When everything gets sorted out, we would need to repeat them again and again and they need to stay fresh. And lastly, do not use all the “strength-of-a-Mumbaikar” lines from the chapter 10 of “One liners for TV Reporters In India”. Leave something for us. We are your seniors.  For those viewers who have just joined us - Mumbai is under a threat, again. There is abnormal activity in suburban trains and we are trying to get more details for you . Meanwhile, you can have a look at this graphic. The big blinking red dots are where reports of disturbances are coming from. Right at the center of things is the Vidyavihar station, where our correspondent Aditi is covering things live and exclusive. Aditi, what are you seeing there ?

Aditi: Thank you Indrani. As I was saying there is a buzz of activity on this station. There have been some spats between two groups and all the commuters have gathered around them to see what is happening.  In fact people are increasing by the minute because everyone is getting down from their trains to see what happened. We are not able to reach the spot as everybody is trying to show their face to the camera and wave at us. But we have Bansi Chaiwalla who has just come out of the crowd and knows what is going on - Bansi, “Aapne Kya dekha ? (what did you see)”

Bansi : “Hum aapko nahee bata sakte, aap Marathi mein poocho” (I can not tell you, you have to ask me in Marathi)

(To save precious database space, the rest of the article has been translated into English directly, and does not use two languages. Everything in italics was originally spoken in Marathi)

Aditi: So Bansi, what did you see ?

Bansi: Fourteen Fifteen people came down from those stairs and started beating up a few boys. After that I started serving tea for everybody. After some time I had to shift to using plastic glasses as the crowd was increasing. Everyone wanted to have tea while watching those 15-16 people bash up those boys.

Aditi : What were they saying ?

Bansi: Mostly they were saying ,”Give me a cup of tea”. Some of them were also saying “with extra milk”. …

Aditi: No No, the 15-16 men, what were they saying ?

Bansi: Oh them ? They were shouting Jai Maharashtra and saying that these boys had disgraced Mahrashtra and Marathis.

Aditi: (Turning towards the camera) Indrani, it seems that this is another onslaught by the MNS for promotion of Marathi in Maharashtra. Let me try to get closer to the action, and I will report from there, back to you Indrani.

Indrani: It turns out that there is no problem with the trains -and it was only curious commuters. Mahesh, Akrosh you do not need to worry. And moreover you should have talked to Aditi before getting all worked up.

Akrosh: But Aditi never gives her phone number to me ….

Indrani: Akrosh, this is not the time to get personal. We have just received a message from Aditi that she has reached the spot of action. Aditi…

Aditi: Indrani, I have Bhonsle Bhau with us, who is an active MNS worker and in charge of this action against these boys. Bhonsle Bhau, why are you doing this ?

BB: Madam, this children have disgraced our culture. These are Marathi Manus but they have lost all their shame and sanskars because of spending their time with outsiders. These outsiders are not ready to change into Marathis, but they change our Marathi boys. Did Shivaji give up his life for these boys ? These boys are a  blot to out society and they should be punished. And every other Marathi boy should know what is the right thing to do after this incident.

Aditi: But Bhosle Bhau, what have they done ?

BB: Madam, these are school children studying in sixth standard. Our group was looking for any one who had their shop name written in Hindi or English, when suddenly one of my boys Bholu got an urgent call of nature. You know that in Mumbai it is not hygienic to pee in public and it could cause all sort of infections, so he went to the nearest school to relieve himself. After a while  he came back looking aghast and surprised. He took us all to the boys toilet. Madam, that toilet was full of dirty things written on the wall. We could not tolerate that , and asked the boys who did this. All of them told us that it was these 4 boys who had written all that. So we found them and bashed them.

Aditi: But you have beaten them so badly, they have to be taken to the hospital immediately.

BB: Yes Madam, we will take them. After all they are our Marathi brothers. But before that we will make them repent. We will take them to the school toilet and make them correct their mistakes.

Aditi: You mean to say you will take them to school and ask them to clean the toilet wall ?

BB: No Madam. Just correct their mistake. They have written all the dirty things in Hindi. They should write them in Marathi. We will ask them to erase everything they have written in Hindi and rewrite it in Marathi. After all, your future is in your own hands ….

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I am not related to 10 Janpath in any way, except that I like espresso coffee. And yes, I have seen Kuch Kuch Hota Hai 4 times  (”Rahul, Naam to Suna Hoga”.  )

But today, I  do not want to talk  about 10 or 11 Janpath -  I am more concerned about what runs on Janpath, or any other “path” for that matter. Have you recently noticed that Delhi roads have become more entertaining than the promising blockbusters which go bust. There are characters on that road which can entertain you for hours. I will discuss those characters today, but later in this article. But first, I would like to discuss one important question  -

How can few mm’s of rainfall create potholes of the dimensions of few meters ?

Think about it. While my country fights withe drought, my city is fighting with the potholes created by 5mm of rain ! This is a topic which needs some detailed investigation  - I think I can write a set of motivational books on this topic -

• “The Monk who sold his Ferrari because of the potholes” ,
• or “You can sink” ,
• or “Who moved my road ?”,
• or pulp stuff like - “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, and potholes are from Moon”.

But I will save those skills for later use.
Let me come back to the road. Literally.

I have been driving on Delhi roads for some 20  years now. I have been on the roads of Delhi with a bicycle, a gearless two wheeler, a clutchless yet with gear two wheeler, a  Lamberetta, a motorbike and a three cars - including a Premier Padmini Fiat.  But there are still things about Delhi roads which amaze me. And I would like to share those with you today.

Pedestrian Outside a Subway Crossing
If you have ever driven in Connaught Place, you must have regretted paying income taxes for Subway constructions. In spite of having the most impressive pedestrian subway network in Delhi, Pedestrians almost always prefer to stay at the ground level. You can see them running across the outer circle road in frenzy - docking a bus , waiting for the Mercedes to pass by and final stopping in front of your car. When I run into such a pedestrian (figuratively that is) - in a split second I do the following stuff simultaneously -

a.. Apply beaks, as hard as possible
b.. Honk, as loud as possible
c.. Listen to horns behind me
d.. Look angrily at the Pedestrian
e.. Make sure my laptop has not slipped from the backseat to the floor of the car
f.. Check my rear view mirror to ensure the car behind me is still behind, and not into me.
g.. Swear

All this because one dude thinks that his life is less worthy than his time and energy. Also, he (or she) thinks that taking stairs up and down is something for kids and senior citizens. I would like to tell all such pedestrians that its better to be under the ground than being under a car. And what the heck, you can even buy watches, posters and key rings for your loved ones inside those subways.

Animals on the Road
Cattle on the road is a thing of the past. Not that they are not there anymore, but talking about them is a thing of the past. Enough people with really low sense of humor have talked about this phenomenon on Indian roads. Hence, I wont. But I would really like to mention an original amisax quote here (for self praise, what else ?)

“Cattle on the road are like bosses - you have a tough time getting your thing past them, and if you hit them, the whole place stinks for days”

Now that I am done with self admiration, let me come back to the animals. As I said, I would not talk about cattle on roads - the new thing is dead dogs. Why do dogs cross roads - that too roads like Greater Noida Expressway ? I myself have had speed breaker like feeling with dead dogs on the road, and have never been able to understand why that jumped to a conclusion.

One day I sat down with a pen and paper and tried to come up with the reasons for why a dog would do such a gross thing ? I thought for more than 4 hours. During those 4 hours, I did not take any phone calls, nor did I get up for coffee - I did not even check my Facebook account! But still, I could not come up with any reason - just proving that I can never think like dogs. Which is good.

The Two Wheeler Rider
Another phenomenon I would like to discuss here is a two wheeler rider. I have driven a two wheeler too. But I never used to think that I was invisible and invincible. A speeding motorbike rider would automatically assume that it is his right to rush past my car when the light has just turner red. Of course the rights definition charter includes the fact that he can hit my side view mirror while he is jumping the light. While that happens, the pillion rider has a right to look back and smile at me - rather laugh.

There are still more stories about perpendicular motor bikes and parallel cars. In fact I was hit twice by cars who tried to save a scooterist from death. The scooter rider, in both cases went off smiling. I always knew that God sent me here to bring cheer to people.

The Graduates
Then there are car drivers who have just graduated from being  scooter riders. They still think that their car is a scooter- only a lot safer. If you ask them why the government spends millions of rupees painting the road with white lines - they would just agree with you. Inside a car, these drivers seem to think that there is absolutely no one else on the road, except themselves. Not their fault, they cant even hear other cars’ honks because of the loud Bhangra music they are playing inside the car.  Some of these further graduate to become bus drivers. These are the people who are instrumental in solving the over population problem in India.

Wrap Up
I could have gone on about Autorickshaws and Santro drivers. But then there is only so much I can sleaze in a day. But next time you hit that road, make sure you hit nothing else. I have an Indica, which has several dents on its sides and back. I also have an Optra, which has been dented by an Auto, a Car and a Truck. There is another dent on the right side, which is there because a cyclist in Bhangel is still alive. I was even hit inside a parking a lot -twice, because the driver who parked beside me was Abhimanyu’s descendant - he knew how to enter a parking lot, but did not know how to get out of it.

I am not proud of those dents, as they were a gift from the characters of the city I drive in. Most of them were not followed by apologies.  I think I deserve a life where car dents are not such a matter-of-fact things. I think I deserve a life where driving could be a stress buster.

A final word of advice - There are video games and go karting for the excitement. Let the road be for commute.